Serpentine

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  "I would say you are one of the most ruthlessly practical people I have ever met," Ru said.

  "Do I say thank you or I'm sorry?"

  "Neither. I am your Bride; you owe me no explanations."

  "You say that, but you don't seem to mean it," Micah said.

  "I do not know what you mean, my king."

  "You say that Anita owes you nothing, but you want things from her and you want her to give them to you."

  "What do I want from our new queen?"

  "To belong," Micah said, looking into Ru's face from inches away.

  "We belong to the Harlequin," Rodina said.

  "But the Harlequin belong to Jean-Claude and Anita."

  "Yes, which means so do we," Ru said.

  "No," Rodina said, "we belong to each other, Little Brother." She was angry; it spilled around the edges of her words and began to trickle energy through the car.

  "If you lose control and bring Anita's beasts, I will be pissed at you," Nicky said.

  "I do not want to raise her beasts."

  "Then control yourself."

  "What's wrong, Rod . . . Morgan?" Nathaniel asked.

  "Our Nimir-Raj is right; we wish to belong, truly belong. We are lost without our brother. He was my right hand, as Ru is my left. I feel amputated from the person I was, the life I thought we were living. I would give almost anything to have Rowan here in this car helping protect you all. I miss his smile, that look of evil mischief in his eyes."

  "You are mourning someone I would have killed for what he did to Domino."

  "We think that's partially why he sacrificed himself at the fight in Wicklow," Ru said.

  "What do you mean?" I asked.

  "He was your Bride. We can feel what you are feeling most of the time. We all knew you meant to kill him when you had the chance. We all felt your hatred and loathing of what he had done to your tiger."

  "He knew you would never let him leave Ireland alive. We all knew it," Rodina said.

  "I won't apologize for wanting to avenge Domino."

  "We are not asking that of you; we would never ask that of you," she said.

  "Then what are you asking?" Micah said in a calm voice.

  "Let us mourn our brother, and stop hating us for it."

  "I don't hate you for mourning your brother," I said. "I hate you a little because you remind me of him, and, no, I can't forgive what he did to Domino and me."

  "He's dead, Anita. He gave his life to save yours. As revenge goes it's quite complete," she said.

  I turned in Micah's arms, so I could see her sitting there beside Nathaniel. "No, that's not revenge. Revenge would have been plunging a sword into his lungs and heart the way he did to Domino. Revenge would have been killing him myself!" I felt the first stirrings inside me of my beasts. It forced me to start doing my breathing exercises. I had to be more in control than this--I had to be--or the beasts inside me would rise to the bait of my rage and try to tear me apart.

  Nathaniel reached out to me and I moved in Micah's arms so I could take his hand. If Rodrigo hadn't sacrificed himself, Nathaniel could have died in Ireland. I hated that the same person had done something so evil and something so good. It messed with my head and my heart. The moment Nathaniel touched me I felt calmer; the anger was still there, but it was muted. I was glad to be touching my two men, glad to be driving with them on our first-ever vacation together with the ocean spilling out on either side of the road like some impossibly beautiful postcard. I was happy for all that, so very happy, but I still regretted not having killed Rodrigo myself. Was that crazy, sociopathic, psychotic? Maybe? But it was still how I felt, and one thing I'd learned in therapy was that you had to own your feelings, all of them. You didn't have to act on them, but you had to acknowledge them. Buried feelings always found a way to uncover themselves. You could do it voluntarily and have some control over it, or you could stuff them down into the darkest part of your psyche and give your inner demons new ammunition to use against you. I was really trying not to do that anymore.

  I said the truth out loud in a voice that was so strained and careful it almost didn't sound like me. "I hate that I owe Nathaniel's life to the same person who killed Domino. I hate that all I can see when I look at the two of you is him. I hate that I'm still so freaked-out about almost losing Nathaniel in Ireland. I hate that I can't seem to let go of it all and just move forward. It makes me feel weak and stupid."

  "You are not weak, or stupid," Micah said, kissing my cheek while I glared at Rodina.

  "I will honor your candor with my own, because Ru and I have not had so much truth aimed at us in centuries. It is most refreshing," she said, but the word refreshing had some bite to it, like an angry echo, as if I wasn't the only one holding my inner demons back.

  "Sister," Ru began, but she waved him silent and he allowed it.

  "I want to hate you for what you did to the three of us. I blame you for my brother's death and I want to hate you for that, too. I want to hate you, Anita Blake, but I cannot. Your magic prevents it. Instead of being able to hate you, I am forced to care about your feelings. It causes me physical pain when you are unhappy, especially if that unhappiness is with Ru and me. You have bound us to you for eternity, or until we die saving you, or you kill us as a whim."

  "I'm not very whimsical."

  She made a sound that was part laughter and part exasperation. "Well, that is the naked truth. Seldom have I met anyone less full of whimsy than you, our would-be queen."

  "So you're both safe," Nathaniel said, and he hugged Rodina, just a quick, friendly hug, but I felt my eyes narrow.

  Micah hugged me and turned me to kiss him; maybe he noticed my reaction to their hug. "You and I are the two least whimsical people I have ever met."

  "I have to be whimsical enough for all three of us," Nathaniel said, smiling.

  We reached out over the back of the seat and he had to stop hugging Rodina so that he could hold both our hands. The three of us rode like that, awkwardly holding hands over the seat, as the ocean stretched out on either side of the highway, and I wished that we were heading to our wedding instead of Edward's. If we could have gotten Jean-Claude down here to stand in the sunlight with us, a wedding by the ocean sounded perfect.

  20

  THE HIGHWAY DROPPED low enough that the trees blocked the view and the water actually lapped the edges of the road, in the roots of the mangroves and other trees that I didn't know the names of. It bothered me that I didn't know what all the plants and trees were called. I'd have to get a plant identification book, just so I'd know what I was looking at. Yes, we had eventually stopped gazing into one another's eyes and started looking at the scenery again.

  "You guys didn't tell me how beautiful it was here," I said as the highway started to rise again over one of the many bridges that spanned from one island to another. I'd known theoretically that the Keys were a series of islands, but I hadn't expected that they would seem like islands. I think I'd thought each one would be bigger, or maybe I'd just never been anywhere that the ocean was so present.

  "We figured it would be more fun to just bring you, since we knew the wedding was coming up," Micah said. He raised my hand to kiss the back of it.

  "You already feel more relaxed, and we just got here," Nathaniel said.

  I turned around so I could see the smile I heard in his voice. It was worth turning around for. With the dark glasses hiding his eyes, it helped me see just how great a smile it was, though his hair had escaped the ponytail again and was falling around his face. The bright sunlight brought out more of the red in his auburn hair. I fought to just enjoy how great he looked in that moment, and not think about why his hair was short. Why couldn't I let that go?

  He touched his hair, putting it behind his ear; he'd felt some of what I was feeling in that moment, what I was thinking. We all worked to stay behind our metaphysical shields with one another, but some of it leaked over. He was my moitie bete, my leopard to call, which meant we were clos
er than just lovers. I felt that he was sad, not because his hair was short, but because it made me sad.

  "I'm sorry that it bothers me this much," I said.

  He reached out to touch my face. "I love that I know what you're feeling, Anita; never apologize for that."

  "And the rest of us don't have any idea what you were thinking, only that you were sad about it," Rodina said, her tone somewhere between disdainful and fighting not to be angry.

  I looked into her dark eyes and said, "And I can't feel what you're feeling at all."

  "No, because we are only your Brides; we feel your emotions, your desires, your needs, but you know nothing of our internal landscape."

  "You're right, we just have to muddle through like every other person on the planet and actually talk to each other about what we're thinking and feeling."

  The car slowed down. I looked back to the road because I thought we were stopping. When we kept creeping forward I looked for a car accident or something else to take us from sixty to about thirty miles per hour.

  Bernardo answered before any of us could ask. "It's the Key deer sanctuary. You have to drive very slowly through here or the cops will give you a ticket."

  "What's so special about deer in the Keys?" I asked.

  "They're a different species, or subspecies," Bernardo said.

  "They're really tiny," Nathaniel said.

  I turned to look at him. "How tiny?"

  "Look to the right," Micah said.

  I looked where he pointed and there were two deer beside the road. Nathaniel was right; they were tiny compared to any deer I'd ever seen. They couldn't have been any bigger than a German shepherd, maybe half the size of a white-tailed deer. I turned as the car crept past them. They were watching the traffic with big, dark eyes, their ears twitching back and forth.

  "They're so pretty," I said.

  "Too small for much meat," Rodina said.

  "Are you just trying to spoil the moment?" Nathaniel asked her.

  "It's just the truth," she said.

  "If you can't be positive, then just stop talking," he said to her.

  She looked surprised that he'd spoken to her like that. Maybe she'd thought that his flirting with her had meant more than it had. Hell, I'd wondered about it myself, but his body posture, his whole attitude toward her, let me know that it was just his usual flirting. He'd probably started out as a flirt, but years of working at Guilty Pleasures had made flirting almost an automatic reflex. Rodina was learning that it hadn't meant anything to Nathaniel except a little fun.

  "This is the first time the three of us have ever gone on a trip together. I know you're in mourning for your brother, and I really am sorry for that--I know what it means to lose a brother--but if you're going to rain all over Anita's happy moments, then we need to send you home and fly in someone else that can do their job without letting their feelings get in the way," Nathaniel said.

  She stared at him for a second, openmouthed. Rodina had made the mistake that a lot of people did with Nathaniel: She'd just seen the flirtatious pretty boy, the stripper who managed to sleep his way to the top of the local food chain.

  She closed her mouth and sank back into that blank face that all the really old ones could manage. "I can do my job."

  "Great," he said, and that was that. He flashed me a smile and said, "We drove through the sanctuary on the way back to the airport and saw more of the deer. They came right up to the car, begging for treats."

  "There are signs all over warning you not to feed the deer," Micah said.

  "The deer came right up to the car windows, totally expecting that we'd give them something," Nathaniel said. His face was shining with the memory of it.

  "I'd love to see more of the deer," I said.

  "We'll come back, but no guarantees on seeing deer," Micah said.

  "I understand, but, hey, at least I got to see two of them."

  A sign let us know that we were leaving the Key deer area and we could go from forty-five miles per hour to whatever the actual speed limit was. I'd been so busy watching the scenery and gazing into my sweeties' faces that I hadn't kept track of it. I looked at the back of Nicky's head. He was working, and he was not my sweetie when he was on the job, but it was a little weird to be so up close and personal with Micah and Nathaniel and not touch Nicky at all.

  I reached up to touch the back of his neck where his hair met the bare skin of his newly shortened haircut. He responded by turning and smiling at me but said, "It's okay, Anita, I don't feel left out."

  "Okay, just checking."

  He smiled a little wider. "And that is one of the reasons I'm okay with it."

  If he had been closer I'd have kissed him, but since he was on the job he might not have allowed it, and nothing is quite as disheartening as offering someone a kiss and having it refused.

  "We still need a cover story for R and R," Nicky said.

  "Whatever story you want to use, think of it fast because we're about ten minutes away from the marina and the boat to the island," Bernardo said.

  I voted for the truth, but I was outvoted. Jean-Claude and I were accused of wanting to be dictators. That wasn't our goal, but every once in a while a little dictatorship didn't sound so bad.

  21

  THE MARINA DIDN'T look that different from ones I'd seen with my family as a kid when we visited relatives on the Great Lakes, but the Great Lakes didn't have palm trees or the ocean spreading out to the horizon like a Caribbean island wet dream. The boat that would take us to the island was at the end of the row closest to the open ocean. We shouldered the bags like we had in the airport and headed down the wooden walkway with Bernardo leading the way. The walkway was wide enough for two of us to walk abreast, but no more, so Rodina and Ru had to walk in front and behind, one trailing Bram and the other following Nicky. The three of us were still in the middle of our bodyguard sandwich. A man's voice called out, "Hey, Bernardo, let me help with the bags."

  I had so many taller people in front of me that I couldn't see the man who was being helpful until Bernardo and Rodina were on the boat, with Bram standing at the end of the wharf so he could keep an eye on us. The man who was helping stow the bags was under thirty with brown curls turned gold from the sun and a tan everywhere that I could see around his white T-shirt and khaki shorts. The T-shirt had a small logo over the pocket that matched the design on his white slip-on boat shoes. When he turned around there was a slogan on the back: Marry Me on Kirke Key, Florida.

  Micah's phone rang as I was handing my first equipment bag to Bernardo on the boat. He let Nathaniel move ahead of him in the queue as he said, "Christy, what's wrong?"

  I had no idea who Christy was, so I let Nicky hand over my other equipment bag and then took Bernardo's hand to step from wharf to boat. The uniformed man was named Roberto, though he looked more like a Chad, or maybe a Ken for Malibu Barbie, but Hispanic came in a lot more colors than most people realized.

  "We're about to get on the boat for Kirke," Micah answered to the mystery woman on the phone. "Damn," he said.

  The tone of voice made Nathaniel say, "No work--you promised."

  "Hold on a minute, Christy." He hit the button that put her on hold and turned to Nathaniel.

  I let Nicky help me out of the boat and back to stand beside them. "What's up, Micah?" I asked.

  "Christy's husband is one of the pictures I showed you. He's drunk at a bar, too drunk to drive home safely, and he's fighting not to change."

  "Stupid; drinking lowers your inhibitions," Nathaniel said.

  "Christy says she's called everyone else that could go to him. She remembered that we were arriving today, so she called."

  "No, Micah," Nathaniel said.

  "He'll be outed if he shifts, Nathaniel."

  "He shouldn't have gotten piss-faced drunk in a public place."

  "I'm going to have to agree with Nathaniel on this one," I said.

  "Christy is pregnant on full bed rest. It's why she can't go get hi
m herself."

  "You're afraid that she'll go get him, if we don't," I said.

  "I've met her husband. Andy was drinking to self-medicate. It actually can help them not change form if you can keep the drunk to a certain level."

  "It doesn't help our form of lycanthropy at all," Nathaniel said.

  "It does seem to help them, but Andy has gone from being a functional alcoholic to being . . ."

  "A drunk," Nathaniel finished for him.

  "Yes," Micah said.

  "No, Micah, just no. It's not your problem. It's not our problem."

  "The snakes that his body changes into are venomous, and non-native to this country."

  "Jesus," I said, "there won't be antivenom for it if they bite one of the people in the bar."

  "People could die," Micah said.

  "So, if I say, no, don't go, and his snakes bite someone and they die, somehow it's my fault for wanting to protect our time together."

  "I didn't say that," Micah said.

  "But you can save the day, and everyone will be safe," Nathaniel said.

  "That's the hope."

  "Damn it," Nathaniel said, "go save them."

  Micah moved to kiss him, and Nathaniel actually turned away from him. Micah's face fell, and my stomach tightened into a hard knot. I did not want this fight, not now, not at the beginning of our trip together. Nathaniel's anger trickled along my skin and through my head, cracking our careful metaphysical distance. He was furious. I wasn't sure I'd ever felt him so angry at us.

  He took a deep breath, let it out slow, and then hugged Micah. "I love you, damn it."

  "I love you, too," Micah said, his face concerned as he pressed himself into the hug.

  Nathaniel kissed him and then turned to me. "I love you both."

  "We love you lots," I said, and for the first time I wasn't sure about moving in for a hug or a kiss.

  He shook his head and then grabbed me, pulling me into an embrace. I let myself relax against his body, the strength of his arms, the solidness of his chest against mine. I buried my face against the side of his neck, breathing in the vanilla scent of him. A piece of his hair tickled along my cheek, and I felt that poignant sense of loss for his longer hair, and for just . . . for surety, for a surety that I could never have. You can say all the vows you want, but they mean that death does us part, and anger, misunderstandings, much smaller things than death, can part you from people. I leaned into his body, his strength, him, even though I could still feel the tension of his anger behind the shields that he'd put back in place hard and tight so we could touch and I wouldn't know how angry he still was at me.